Archbishop Ireney's visits to Taiwan

As stated previously, Archbishop Ireney journeyed alone to Taiwan on church business on September 9th. He journeyed to Taiwan by air. He returned safely, landing at Haneda airport on the night of 15th.

Since last year the Archbishop has been visiting the faithful in Taiwan. There are about 100 Orthodox faithful in Taiwan, including people from countries such as Russia, America, China and Greece. However, at the moment there is no consecrated church in Taiwan, so the faithful gather in Gleb Rar's home in a temporary church. Mr. Rar has a room with an iconostas and other items necessary for services.

This year the Archbishop flew to Taipei traveling in a CAT plane [1] which departed from Haneda airport on April 2nd at 11 pm and was scheduled to be there a week. However the Archbishop really regretted the fact that he could not attend a meeting commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the beginning of the Anglican missionary work scheduled to take place during that period, so he sent a letter to the Anglican Church explaining his schedule and apologizing for his absence, sending Archpriest Usawa in his place. Needless to say, Archbishop Ireney's visit had many goals, the biggest one being celebrating baptisms.

There were a total of fifteen people to be baptized, including 11 Chinese children, one [Chinese] adult and one Russian baby (see attached photograph). The Archbishop's return landing at Haneda airport was [scheduled] for 10:30 pm on the 9th, but because of bad weather [the flight] was about 2 hours late and he landed at the airport close to midnight. The fact that the Archbishop did not show the effects of his brief tour of Taipei and Taichung and was in good spirits gave a sense of relief to those who had come to meet him.